


not broken, she's just a baby

by Twisted_Mind



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Always Female Stiles Stilinski, Cis Female Stiles Stilinski, Clothing Disparity, Dirty Talk, Dom Chris Argent, Dom Peter Hale, Dom/sub, F/M, Hand Feeding, Hurt/Comfort, Inspection, Isolation, Kink Discovery, Kneeling, Loneliness, Massage, Masturbation, Misunderstandings, Negotiations, Professional Dom, Stargent Week 2019, Sub Stiles Stilinski, Subdrop, Touch-Starved Stiles Stilinski, Vaginal Fingering
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-25
Updated: 2020-06-26
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:48:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21554128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Twisted_Mind/pseuds/Twisted_Mind
Summary: Stiles swallows convulsively, locking gazes with him, and Chris can’t remember if he’s ever seen someone with eyes this hungry, this sad. “I just—I want to betouched,” she whispers, and he thinks his heart just cracked. “The—the skin-on-skin kind.”They haven’t discussed limits or payment or session length, but Chris does not care. He slides his big hands around her forearms, closing his fingers around them gently. “It’s alright, baby,” he murmurs, standing and drawing her to her feet. “I’ve got you.” And then he tucks her under his chin, presses her tight to his chest as he wraps his arms around her.
Relationships: Chris Argent/Stiles Stilinski
Comments: 334
Kudos: 753





	1. she won't look at you, won't look at you

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Stargent week! This is not my usual posting day, but I'm hoping to wrap chapter 2 and get it up on Friday. ;) BIG thanks to Bunnywest for the speedy beta, and to Bunny, DenaCeleste, and DiscontentedWinter for cheering this on. 
> 
> This is super self-indulgent. Soft kink and Daddy Dom Chris are my happy place. You're welcome. Tags will update as the fic does, so keep an eye on that.

Stiles stands there shivering in the light rain and September wind, gnawing her bottom lip and wondering if she’s actually going to do this. Another gust of upstate New York wind decides for her. She’ll go in—even if only to ask them to call her another taxi home. She doesn’t _have_ to do what she came here for.

But even as she pulls open the door to the renovated Victorian, she hears Lydia’s voice from an hour earlier.

_“You’re on the other side of the country from most of us, and I can’t give you what you need. And you do need it, Stiles.”_

She’s tried to argue of course. Lydia hadn’t budged—not that she ever did in an argument, but even hoping she would when Stiles had called her tipsy and on the verge of tears was just embarrassing. Maybe not as embarrassing as the fact that she’s apparently walking into an escort service damp, shivering, and with half a mind to bolt, but only time will tell.

But, well. This place is the most discreet in the city—so much so that Stiles couldn’t actually find a list of prices or services offered. Just testimonials, an address, phone number, and a name.

_Triskele Services._

She stumbles into the foyer, and it’s not at all what she’d expected. The lighting is warm, the wood dark and well-cared for, instrumental music playing softly from somewhere. There’s a man behind a reception desk, and he’s aware of her, she can tell—his head tilted towards the door when she stepped in—but he’s not looking at her, seeming instead to concentrate on the paperwork in front of him.

Ball’s in her court, and she’s not sure she wants it to be. She wonders why the fuck she let Lydia talk her into this, but crosses the floor to stand in front of the desk. “Excuse me?”

He looks up at her. He smiles, but his gaze is assessing. Stiles drops her eyes, doesn’t want to know what he’s seeing. “First time?” he asks, his voice smooth and sympathetic.

Stiles nods, wrapping her arms around herself and wishing she’d brought an umbrella. She’s too used to California. He hums. “What’s your name, sweetheart?”

She licks her lips, debates whether or not she should give her real name, but given that they’re going to charge her credit card—which does have her name on it—she figures there’s not a lot of point. There’s a reason she searched for the most discreet place she could find. “Stiles,” she murmurs.

“My name’s Peter, and I own Triskele Services. What are you searching for, Stiles?”

And isn’t that the million dollar question? She opens her mouth, but closes it without answering. She doesn’t know how. Because what Stiles wants, above and beyond anything else, is for the bottomless ache behind her sternum to go quiet, to have hands and a mouth on her skin, feel someone else’s weight pressing her into the mattress. Sex would give her that, but it’s the means, not the end.

Peter seems to misunderstand her turmoil. “It’s alright if you don’t know, pet. Would you prefer a man or woman?”

And, well. That’s an easyish question. “Either’s fine.”

It nets her a raised eyebrow, but no more. “You looking to play hard, or,” his tone drops to something knowing, “dip your toes in?”

A nervous giggle bubbles up her throat. “Dip my toes.” She’d hate that she’s so transparent to a total stranger, but then—it’s his job to peg clients’ preferences as soon as they come in the door, isn’t it?

Peter looks at her consideringly. “You know, I think I have just the thing. He’s only a part-timer with us, and it’s perfectly alright if you end up with someone else down the road, but if you’re new to all this, he’s just what you want.”

“Not big and scary?” Stiles jokes.

Peter shakes his head, a smile crinkling the corners of his eyes. “Not unless you ask nicely. He’s definitely a firm hand with a soft touch. He’ll like you.”

The description feels a little off, but it’s not like Stiles has anything to compare it to, so she nods. “Yeah, okay.”

Peter gives her a little nod. “Alright. I’ll nip upstairs and let him know he’s got a walk-in, but while I do that, you,” he pulls out a sheaf of papers stapled together, and slides them across the reception desk, “should read this and sign if you agree.”

She nods again, unable to speak around the sudden lump in her throat. She’s doing this, apparently. She’s really just walked in to an escort service and is being set up with someone right now, and the sheets of 8.5”x11” make it real in a way that the cab ride, rain, and odd chat with Peter didn’t.

She’s jittering so hard it’s difficult for her to focus and read, but once she skims the first page, she realizes it’s a non-disclosure agreement. She’d had to sign one for work, because companies get squirrelly about R&D leaks, and the familiarity of the jargon actually calms her down a bit. She’s skimming the second page—apparently the NDA works both ways, in that she keeps her mouth shut about what goes on here and so do they—when Peter returns with another man in tow.

He makes her heartbeat trip over itself and start going double-time.

At first glance, she thinks he’s an older man, maybe early fifties, but as he closes the space between them to shake her hand, she realizes that he must be younger than that. Stiles thinks he went prematurely grey, but the salt-and-pepper hair and beard suits him. Dude’s a silver fox of the highest degree. He gives her a sunshine grin and his hand is warm wrapped around her icy fingers, his voice quiet and gravelly as he says, “I’m Chris. Nice to meet you.”

She gives his hand a little squeeze, and then takes hers back, stuffing it in her pocket to try and keep it warm. “Stiles.”

Chris looks at her in a way she’s not quite comfortable with, like he’s seeing something inside her, and she drops her eyes. He’s in dark wash jeans and some kind of pointed-toe boots. Combined with his white collared shirt—the top three buttons left undone and the sleeves cuffed to the elbow—she decides to forgive Peter for apparently reaching into her brain and pulling out someone from the fantasies she doesn’t like to admit to _herself_ that she has.

Peter pulls her out of her head. “Everything in order?” He nods to the papers in her hands.

“Uh, yeah, I think so—just a sec.” Stiles sees there’s a spot on the bottom of the second page for the NDA section, and flips briefly through the last two pages, which seems to be some kind of liability waver. She signs her name on pages two and four, and then spins it around. Peter fills out the date and signs the NDA, and then has Chris do the same.

And then Peter hands her a pamphlet, “The rules, all pretty standard,” and she blushes so hard it feels like her cheeks on fire. She nods and tucks it into her purse, even though she doesn’t have the first clue about what standard rules might be for a place like this.

Peter smirks at her, but it’s not cruel. “And now I turn you over to Christopher’s capable hands.”

She nods, and Chris tips his head. “Follow me.”

She does, arms wrapped around her torso, and prays this isn’t a mistake.

***

Chris eyes his new client carefully when they get to the room. Peter wasn’t kidding when he called her “skittish”—if anything, “skittish” is an understatement. The way she’s folded in on herself—shoulders hunched, arms wrapped around her ribs, head ducked—makes him wonder why she’s even here when discomfort, if not outright fear, is present in every line of her body.

He settles himself in an armchair, and considers how to handle her. At this point, he can’t tell if her obvious reluctance is down to anticipatory fear and misconceptions, or desperation. The former is more likely, but she still came through their doors, so—“Why don’t we sit, and you can tell me what brought you here?”

He gets a piercing stare before she nods and jerkily strips out of her coat, hanging it on the hook by the door. Her purse is dropped on the floor by the armchair across from him. She leans forward, bracing her elbows on her knees and folding her hands together. “I’m—new, to the city. The state, really.”

He nods, and Stiles licks her lips before she continues. “I don’t have a lot of family, but what I do have is back in California. Pretty much all of my friends, too.”

 _Isolation_ , he thinks. _That would do it_. “How did you end up out here, so far away from them?”

She gives a little smile, but it doesn’t touch the hollowness in her eyes. “I was headhunted for an R&D position. It was my dream job, and there it was, offered to me on a silver platter.”

“Was the job not as advertised?” he probes gently. He still doesn’t know how she got here, to this place and this room and his skillset.

She’s shaking her head before he finishes the question. “No, no! It’s—like I said, it’s my dream job. It’s just,” she pauses, rolling her bottom lip between her teeth to nibble on it.

When she doesn’t continue, he prompts her. “But?”

She sighs, slumping to lean more weight on her knees. “But the job is _hard_. I work long hours, and I don’t know anyone out here. My closest friend is in Boston, and I’m living alone for the first time, I’m worried about my dad, and guys in bars are creeps. I’m tired and lonely, which is _stupid_ , I work with the same team of people every day, and I haven’t gotten laid in months, and even then, it wasn’t what I’d call good, and—”

The raw, cracked-open need causes a possessive ache in his chest, and he slides out of his chair to crouch in front of her. “Hey. What is it you need from me?” It’s nowhere close to his usual script, to the level of detail he prefers to have before they get started, but he doesn’t know if she can wait that long.

Stiles swallows convulsively, locking gazes with him, and Chris can’t remember if he’s ever seen someone with eyes this hungry, this sad. “I just—I want to be _touched_ ,” she whispers, and he thinks his heart just cracked. “The—the skin-on-skin kind.”

They haven’t discussed limits or payment or session length, but Chris does not care. He slides his big hands around her forearms, closing his fingers around them gently. “It’s alright, baby,” he murmurs, standing and drawing her to her feet. “I’ve got you.” And then he tucks her under his chin, presses her tight to his chest as he wraps his arms around her.

A fine tremor runs through her, and Chris tightens his grip. She all-but melts in response, and he knows what he’s going to do. It’s unorthodox as hell—there’s an excellent chance Peter will verbally rip him a new asshole if he ever finds out all the protocol Chris is glossing over right now—but the young woman in his arms is tugging at his instincts in a way his clients rarely do.

Then again, most of them aren’t touch-starved and alone, desperate and torn-up with it when they find him. He’s always been a nurturer, and Peter sent her to him for a reason, even though there were a couple others who were free—both tonight, and later in the week.

With that in mind, he murmurs, “Here’s what we’re going to do.”

***

She’s drowning in the hug—in the heat of his body pressed up against hers, the smell of him, the comforting pressure of his arms and hands keeping her close—so it takes her a minute to realize he spoke, and she should pay attention. “I’m sorry—what? I mean,” she coughs, stepping back even though she doesn’t want to. “Could you repeat that, please?”

Pale blue eyes track over her, and she has to fight down the urge to shiver. “I said, here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to lay down a towel, and you’re going to strip for me.”

It’s—the tone is weird. The words themselves could be a question, but the tone is an order. She doesn’t know what to make of it, or the fact that she finds it reassuring, somehow. “Okay.”

He nods at her and then steps away to the armoire in the corner. Stiles toes off her shoes, a little reluctant. She came here with the intent to pay for sex, nudity was going to factor in at some point. But her unease grows as she shimmies out of her jeans and plaid overshirt.

She’s down to her tee shirt and underwear when Chris looks at her, a thick towel slung over one forearm and a large jar in his hand. “Keep going, baby. Can’t put my hands on all that pretty skin if you keep it covered.”

It eases the tension in her chest a little, makes it less overwhelming to finish peeling out of her clothes. By the time she’s done, the towel has been spread across the bed on the other side of the room, the jar resting on the night table. Chris’s gaze slides over her frame, assessing in a way she’s not used to, and he nods. “I’m going to the washroom,” he points to a door on the right that she’d assumed for some reason was a closet, “and then we’ll get started. For now, come lie down for me.”

Stiles nods, crossing the room, but she pauses by the bed. “How, um. How do you want me to,” she gestures at the bed.

Chris smiles, the same sweet sunshiny one from the reception desk. “On your front, baby. On the towel, please.”

He disappears, and she lies down as instructed. She’s tense, waiting for him, because she doesn’t know what, exactly, he’s going to do, but when he returns, he runs one hand—warm and callused—up her back. “Thank you, baby.”

Before Stiles can respond—or ask what next—he grabs the jar and swings himself up on the bed to straddle her thighs. She twists her head around to try and see him, and sees him opening the jar. “Coconut oil,” he says, like that explains anything at all.

And then his slicked-up hands glide over her back again, and it clicks. “You’re giving me a backrub?”

His broad hands continue to spread the oil, from all the way up to her neck down to her ass. “For a start. We’ll play it by ear. You need more than this, or something different, I’ll adapt.”

It sounds good, but—“If I need to—“

“The only thing you need to do right now is lie here and let me take care of you, baby,” Chris murmurs, and there’s something in his deep tones that makes her burrow her face into the bed to hide her blush.

She does as instructed, and she’s such a train wreck from being alone for so long that her responses are a mess—there’s a tangled mash of emotions in her gut, and she’s torn between melting into the bed at the sheer pleasure of his big, warm hands coaxing her muscles into letting go, and writhing with the heat that’s building between her thighs. She’s tired and wired simultaneously, sleepy and content under Chris’s attention, and unable to stop a different kind of need from becoming harder and harder to ignore.

She manages to keep control of herself as he works out the knots in her shoulders and pushes the heels of his hands up the long muscles on either side of her spine. She even manages to be good when his oiled-up hands start working her glutes, although that’s mainly because it kinda hurts—she had no idea she carried that much tension in her butt. But when his thumbs start making circles over her lower back, his long fingers curling over her hips, she loses it, moaning.

It makes him pause, and Stiles wishes the bed would swallow her. “Yeah?” he rumbles, deep and somehow knowing and unfairly sexy. “You need my hands somewhere else, baby?”

“’m good,” she mumble-yells, refusing to pull her face up from the blankets.

Chris hums. “You’re very good,” he says slowly, sending shivers racing up her spine as his hands cup her hips, squeezing deliberately. “But that’s not what I asked.”

She lets out a strangled whine as his hands skate across her butt, one thumb dipping down to brush her labia. “Hmm, what do you know,” he murmurs, thumb slip-sliding across her slick folds, “that sure feels like something you could use a hand with. What do you say, baby?”

And Stiles, well. She’s human and lonely and weak, so she mewls, “Please?” and he flips her onto her back. She spreads her legs wide for him, because she's lost the fight to behave and control herself.

Chris tuts as he pulls on a glove. “That’s a very pretty little cunt you’ve got there, baby. Shame it’s been neglected.”

Her cheeks burn, and she doesn’t know what to do with her hands. The urge to cover herself is hard to ignore. “Don’t tease.”

Chris locks gazes with her, his expression unexpectedly serious. “I’m not.”

And then two of his fingers are sliding inside her without hesitation or warning. It’s good, it’s _so_ good—nearly perfect—and she’d jackknife at the intensity, except that Chris’s other hand is planted firmly against her chest, holding her down against the bed. She whines, hips twisting, needy and shameless with it.

“That’s it, I’ve got you, baby,” Chris mutters, curving his fingers up and nailing her in the g-spot.

Stiles might shriek a little, but she doesn’t have time to worry about it, because the hand splayed across her chest is holding her down while the other fingerfucks her in short, hard bursts, his arm rolling with enough force to jar up her spine and start an orgasm building faster than she’s ever experienced in her life. “Oh God,” she gasps, wrapping her hands around the wrist at her chest, eyes closing as she takes what he’s giving her.

Chris growls, the sound gritty in a way that makes her clench around his fingers. “That’s it, baby. Be a good girl and come for me.”

She whines, gazing blearily up at him, hips rolling into the movement of his hand. “I don’t think—”

A small smirk twists his lips. “You can, sweet thing. And you’re going to.”

His fingers push deep, an unrelenting pressure against her g-spot as the heel of his hand grinds against her clit, and she comes, choking on a cry.


	2. nothing to lose

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Friday my lovelies! I'm so glad everyone enjoyed the first chapter, and I hope the second one goes down just as well! _**Please note**_ that the tags have been updated to reflect the story, and keep an eye on that as things progress! 
> 
> Thanks to Bunnywest and DiscontentedWinter for cheer-reading. This wouldn't've been possible without you two. <3

She spends the first two days after her—appointment? session? she doesn’t know the term for “evening spent with the man I hired to touch me”—with Chris feeling like everything is right with the world. She sleeps better, is more focussed, feels like herself. Her skin fits right in a way she didn’t realize she was missing. It’s absolutely amazing, even if she’s a little more distracted at work than usual because she keeps remembering his hands and getting side-tracked.

And then she wakes up the third morning after her night with Chris and it’s all gone to shit. She’s stiff and achy, muscles locked up and cranky, and her temples are throbbing. She brews an extra-large pot of coffee and blames the weather, because what else can she do?

When it’s just as bad at the end of the day as when she woke up, Stiles figures she should probably do something about it, and lies in bed Googling local massage therapists. She won’t get the “happy ending” from them that she did from Chris, but obviously it’ll still help. She books online during her lunch hour tomorrow and then tries to go to sleep, because she needs to make it through another thirteen or so hours before things will get better.

***

It doesn’t help, and she doesn’t get better.

The massage therapist is some obnoxiously perky woman Stiles wants to throttle, and while she’s competent enough at unfucking Stiles’s back, she makes the unsettled, on-edge feeling worse.

But Stiles still gets up from her desk and stretches every hour, because there’s no sense in wasting the money she paid on the massage. When she finally gets home, she tries to make herself come, wondering if her excessive grump is just sexual tension, but falls asleep halfway through.

She wakes up on the fourth day after her what-have-you with Chris feeling like absolute garbage. She’s desperately hoping it’s not the flu. Hauling her ass out of bed leaves her feeling dizzy and weak, and she realizes that, yeah, no, there’s no way she can go to work like this.

Heart in her throat, she calls in. It’s no big deal to the person on the other end of the line, but it’s hard not to worry about what it’ll mean—to her paycheque, the project she’s working on, whether or not it might look bad and contribute to a firing later on down the road. Stiles makes herself a cup of coffee and grabs a granola bar before crawling back to bed. She only manages to drink about half the coffee before dozing back off.

She’s awoken by her phone ringing, and she answers on autopilot. “’Lo?”

There’s a pause on the other end. “It’s Peter from Triskele Services calling. I’m looking for Stiles?”

“Uh.” What? Why are they calling her? “Hi?”

“That you, pet?”

Right. She probably sounds all raspy. “Yeah, hi, Peter. Is something wrong?”

“I was actually going to ask you that,” he replies slowly.

Stiles is so very confused. “Uh, no? Why?”

“We don’t normally have clients drop off the face of the map after a session unless something’s gone wrong.” Stiles reaches for her gone-cold coffee. She is clearly not caffeinated enough for this conversation, because she’s missing something. Peter’s not making sense. “There’s no record of you calling us back, and Chris says you haven’t gotten in touch with him, either. Was it a bad match? I can set you up with another dominant if you prefer, no one here will take that personally.”

And that word— _dominant_ —wakes her up like a lightning bolt to the brain. “Another _what_?!”

There’s a moment where neither of them speak, and then Peter asks, “What did you walk into Triskele Services for?”

“Um.” Stiles starts wondering how embarrassed she should be. “I uh. Thought I was hiring an escort service?”

He sighs. “How are you feeling, pet?”

It’s not at all where she thought this conversation was going, and she doesn’t understand why he’s asking, but the focus isn’t on her fuckup, so she goes with the topic change. “Like shit. I think I’m coming down with that flu that’s going around.”

He makes a knowing hum. “You running a fever? Coughing or sneezing?”

It makes her pause, because, “No . . .?” and that’s weird, isn’t it?

“It’s not the flu.”

“Huh, I didn’t know you were a doctor at your day job.” It’s reflex snark, but thankfully Peter just laughs.

“Sweetheart, I can help you feel better, but you need to come back to the office. There’s also some information you need, and that’s better explained in person. I’m assuming you didn’t read over the paperwork or pamphlet I gave you?”

“Um.”

He sighs again. “That’s what I thought. When will you be able to come in?”

Stiles looks at the clock, and thinks about it. She really does feel awful, but if Peter can fix whatever this is . . . “Gimme an hour? Maybe an hour and a half, with traffic.”

“Alright, pet. I’ll see you when you get here.”

***

When she stumbles shivering and wobbly-legged through the doors of Triskele Services, Stiles expects to see Peter behind the desk. Instead, there’s a tall, intimidating blonde who fixes her with a look so intense Stiles wonders if she’s about to get thrown out on her ass. Instead, the woman calls for Peter, who appears out of thin air.

He takes in her appearance, and a crease forms between his eyebrows. “Alright, come with me, pet. This way.”

She lets him take her elbow and guide her through to what she’d call a “sitting room” if she wasn’t apparently at a kink establishment. She’s tempted to call it that anyway—it’s got a thick rug on the floor, low coffee table, and a comfortable sofa complete with throw cushions. She deliberately doesn’t look at the file folder or the covered tray on the table.

“Please, get comfortable.” Peter gestures behind her to an old-fashioned coat-stand.

And, well. She may not be completely sold on this place or what they do, but she might as well take off her coat and boots. No sense in keeping them on. Once she’s done that, she looks at Peter expectantly.

“Would you prefer to kneel, or sit next to me under my arm?”

Stiles blinks. “Excuse me?” At his raised eyebrow, she hurries to add, “I don’t exactly know you.”

Peter sighs. “There’s a lot you don’t know just yet, and that’s not your fault. But the most important thing right this moment is helping you through your drop, and the best way to do that is with closeness and some care. That’s all I’m offering. Will you let me give you that?”

It sounds like a crock of shit, but Stiles nods. She doubts he’s going to make anything worse, and nothing about the room—from the light streaming in the bay windows to the cream-and-gold colour scheme to the fussy, antique-style furniture—makes her think Peter’s going to try anything skeevy. So she takes a deep breath, remembers the way he called to check in on her, and how gentle he’d been with her when she first walked through their doors, and takes a chance. “Okay. How, um. How do you want me?”

Peter’s lips curl into a soft smile. “Come kneel for me, pet.”

It’s gently said, but it’s not a request. She nods, and follows him to the sofa. Peter settles himself, and then drops one of the thick throw cushions on the floor. “For your knees,” he murmurs, and he’s officially more considerate than some of her exes have been.

“Facing you, or . . .?”

He nods towards the file folder. “Our first order of business is to go over what you signed. Face the coffee table, poppet.”

It feels a little scary to put her back to him, but Stiles obeys, grateful for the thick cushion. Big hands rest on her shoulders, and Peter’s thumbs trace gentle circles on either side of her spine. “I want you to carefully read the second part of the agreement you signed. Take as much time as you need. We’ll talk about the rest after.”

Stiles nods, and—despite feeling a little squirmy in the midsection about the misunderstanding and having her back to a man she doesn’t really know—she’s actually feeling a little steadier. She tries to hold onto that, that this is helping and everything will be okay, as she opens the folder, and flips past the NDA portion at the front.

The second part of the photocopied document makes her breath stutter, but Peter just gives her shoulders a gentle squeeze.

_By signing and utilizing our services, you agree to the following:_

_1) that you will disclose all necessary and relevant medical information pertinent to your safety and well-being to your provided scene partner, and that Triskele Services will not to be held liable for any consequences arising from said disclosure, nor from your decision to withhold such information;_

_2) that you acknowledge and take full responsibility for any and all risks undertaken at Triskele Services and with our staff, and will not hold Triskele Services, our staff, or any associated third-party provider responsible for any physical, mental, or emotional damages you sustain as a result of accessing our services;_

_3) that Triskele Services will endeavour to provide reasonable duty of care, as determined by the judgement of your provided scene partner and/or other staff members, and in accordance with Triskele Services’ Aftercare Policy;_

_4) that there will never be any exchange of money or goods in return for sexual acts performed for or upon you by any Triskele Services staff member, and that any sexual activity that occurs between you and any staff member will be entered into with full, sober, and freely-given consent, subject to revocation by either party at any time. Furthermore, you will abide by the rules of safer sex while on the premises or contracting a Triskele Services staff member off-site, including but not limited to use of barriers during oral, anal, and/or vaginal sex acts, subject to negotiation only upon presentation of up-to-date test results proving that you are not, knowingly or unknowingly, exposing staff to illness, infection, or other biological hazard;_

_5) you will not utilize your knowledge of Triskele Services, our staff, or our clients for any illegal or defamatory purposes, including but not limited to: making any information about Triskele Services, our staff, and/or clients public; attempting to humiliate, blackmail, slander or publish libel about Triskele Services, our staff, or our clients for personal, professional, or monetary gain;_

_6) that, in the event of a boundary violation, ignored safeword, abusive practise, or actual or intended breach of these terms on the part of a staff member or client, you will notify Triskele Services’ owner and manager, Peter Hale, or assistant manager Deucalion Blackwood, in writing, within 90 business days._

Stiles leans back against the couch after finishing, brushing against Peter’s legs. She vaguely registers that his hands stay on her shoulders. Her mind is a little blown.

She’s also bizarrely reassured, because, well. She wanted the most discreet agency in the city, and apparently she found it. Just. Not the kind of agency she expected.

“Do you understand it, poppet? If you have any questions about what you signed, I’d be happy to explain.” Peter’s voice is calm, non-judgemental.

Stiles shakes her head. “No, I—working in an R&D department, I’m, uh. Pretty familiar with legal documents. I think I get what I’ve agreed to, here.” She takes a deep, bracing breath. “I just don’t understand what’s happening to me, or how what Chris and I did counts as, uh,” she stutters, unsure how to say what she means, what words she should use, and how to avoid offending Peter, who apparently _owns_ this place.

But he just strokes a thumb down the side of her neck soothingly. “Dominance and submission aren’t about whips and chains. It’s a power exchange, and that means it can happen without any trappings at all.”

She shakes her head, not in disagreement, but confusion. “I just—I don’t. How?”

“Turn around, poppet. This is a conversation we should have face-to-face.”

She shuffles around, because that makes sense, although she’s not sure why being able to see his face might make this make sense. Once she has, she finds Peter staring intently at her face.

“How are you feeling now?”

She pauses, head tipping as she takes stock. “Better? Still not great.”

He nods like he expected that. “May I touch your hair?”

This man and his fucking non-sequiturs. “Uh, sure?”

And then his hand settles in her hair, petting through the strands and gently massaging her scalp, and any complaint she might’ve had disappears. Her eyes slip shut and a contented sigh slips out her lips, because dude has magic hands. It’s the only explanation for this.

“That’s it, poppet, there you go,” he murmurs, and it shouldn’t send syrupy warmth through her, but it _does_.

Stiles doesn’t know how long they spend like that, silent as he melts her spine with hair-pets and scalp scritches, but eventually she’s leaning against his leg, her cheek pressed to his linen-covered knee. She’s warm and comfortable and a little sleepy when Peter breaks the silence. “Kink is something of an umbrella term, and because of that, it means something different to everyone. There are some people who are only interested in the trappings of it—the fun toys and outfits, the way it can spice things up in the bedroom after a marriage bed has gone stale.”

Stiles hums, but doesn’t speak. He’s making sense so far.

“There are people for whom it’s an extra. Something they enjoy once in a while, a desire to indulge. There are people who are drawn to specific aspects of it—sadomasochists who like a little, or a lot, of pain with their pleasure, and seek out compatible partners to give them that.” He pauses, and she makes another understanding sound. She doesn’t get it, not really, doesn’t understand how pain can be anything _but_ pain, but she’s long since learned that everyone’s weird. The important bit here is that Peter’s fingers don’t stop moving through her hair. “But there are some people for whom kink is more innate, a thing they crave or even need. Those people tend to be interested in the dominance and submission aspect, the power exchange I mentioned.”

Stiles nuzzles a little against his knee, turning to look at his face. “But why?”

“Why are you kneeling for me right now?” he asks softly.

Her heart beats a little faster at the implication. “Because you,” she swallows, and thinks, _you told me to_ , “asked.”

Peter dips his chin. “And why did you obey me? Why are you still on your knees?”

No. She isn’t—she’s not—“You said you could make me feel better.”

She sounds a little desperate, even to her own ears, and Peter’s expression is gentle, even as his other hand cups her throat. “You chose to obey me, to submit to my will, because you trusted that I have good intentions, and would help you feel better.”

Her knee-jerk reaction is to deny it. She’s not _submitting_ , she came here for answers. This isn’t submission, they both still have all their clothes on. She hasn’t given up any power to him, and she _wouldn’t_ , she barely knows him.

All of it’s belied by the fact that she doesn’t pull away, stand up, leave.

“Dominance and submission are about trust and control, poppet. It’s a kind of chemistry between people—always there, even if it’s not acted on, the same way your boss is always your boss, even if you’re not at work. And because of that, it doesn’t need whips or chains, leather or corsets, pain or even sex to happen between two people. It just needs one person to trust the other enough to give up control, and the other person to be worthy of that trust.”

Her breath hitches and her eyes squeeze shut against the tears she doesn’t want to let fall. She—she knows, that what Peter’s describing is what’s happening right now, in a watered-down way, and it makes her understand why her session with Chris felt so different from what she’d expected, from other sexual encounters she’s had. She thinks she gets it, now, but she doesn’t know how to apply it to herself. Doesn’t know if she wants to.

She’s never wanted to be a person who submitted to anyone else.

Peter makes a little unhappy noise, and then his hands are under her arms and lifting her onto the sofa, tucking her against his side. Stiles buries her face against his chest and tries to get a grip on herself.

“I’m sorry, I don’t—I don’t do this. Freak out on strangers.”

The arm he has wrapped around her waist gives a gentle squeeze. “You’re alright, poppet. Emotional instability and mood swings are part of drop. It doesn’t make you weak.”

She sticks to the easy topic, for the moment. “Drop?”

“Mhm.” He’s quiet for a moment. “When a submissive has a scene—or session—with a dominant, it can cause an altered state. It’s often referred to as ‘subspace’. But even when that doesn’t happen, the submissive still makes themselves vulnerable by giving up control. Because of that, it’s standard practise for the dominant partner to provide aftercare and check in the next day or so, to prevent what you’re experiencing right now, which we refer to as ‘drop’.”

The proverbial lightbulb goes off. “That’s why you called me—because I hadn’t checked in?”

“Nobody here had heard from you, so I wanted to see how you were doing, if you were alright.” He leans his cheek on the top of her head, and it should be strange, cuddling with a man she doesn’t really know, but it feels good and is making the flu feelings go away, and there’s nothing sexual about it. It’s been months since she was last held like this, and she won’t give it up until she has to.

That doesn’t mean she’s not still curious, though. “But, I mean. What actually is ‘drop’? Because this felt a lot like flu.”

Peter sighs, and the arm he has around her waist moves to slide up her back, and then back down. “It can. It’s a little different for everyone, because no two power exchanges are exactly alike, and everyone’s brain chemistry is different. No one’s really sure of the exact cause of drop, but the generally accepted theories are that it’s a consequence of a scene going badly, or because the participants were in an altered state. Doms can drop too, although more often it’s subs who experience it.” He pauses, and Stiles stays quiet. He still hasn’t really answered her question, but more because she thinks he’s building up to it, rather than trying to dodge. After a long moment, he continues. “It’s . . . it can feel like the flu, I’ve been told. Headaches, muscle aches or spasms, exhaustion. The emotional affects are more common—a need for reassurance in the days following the scene, irritability or crying, mood swings.”

“And this happens every time?” she asks, incredulous. Because if it does, why the hell would anyone do this more than once?

Peter huffs a laugh. “Not usually, no. There are some people who drop after every scene, but they’re the exception rather than the rule. Most of the time, drop can be prevented, or at least lessened, with some basic measures—like making sure you’re sober and well-rested before a scene—in combination with aftercare. What kind of aftercare someone needs varies from person to person, but again, there are some basic, common measures that tend to help.”

“Like what?” Stiles murmurs, because even feeling half-dead, she’s curious. She’s never heard of this, and it’s not like she’s an internet noob or has never seen kinky porn. She has, but this kind of stuff never came up in her Wikipedia binges or porn searches.

Not only that, but Peter’s hand doesn’t stop sliding up and down her back, and between that and how warm he is, she’s fighting to stay awake. If she can’t keep him talking, she just _knows_ she’s gonna doze off against his shoulder.

“Physical contact is the most common, but a conversation about how it went or reassurance can help, too. Having something to drink and rehydrating, a light snack. For some, wrapping up and staying warm is important, while others might prefer to stay undressed and indulge in skin-to-skin contact with their scene partner. As I said, it’s very individual, and some of that gets worked out with individual clients, but check-ins after the scene are also a common way to prevent or lessen drop. Did Christopher not do any of those things, poppet?”

Stiles thinks about it, and remembers being post-orgasmic and clingy—and ashamed that she was. She lied next to Chris for a few minutes, and then reluctantly dragged herself out of bed to get dressed and leave, because she believed—wrongly, as it turns out—that, as an escort, he wouldn’t appreciate her lingering. He’d told her she could stay a little longer, but she mistook it for a polite lie and declined. “He, uh. He tried? Offered to let me stay and cuddle, asked if I wanted a drink or to go get something to eat, but,” she shrugs as best she can without unoctopussing from Peter’s side.

He heaves a dramatic sigh. “Let me guess—because you didn’t realize the dynamics at play, and thought it was just a quickie with your average sex worker, you didn’t let him provide you with the aftercare you needed?”

“Oops?”

“Really, poppet? ‘Oops’?” he parrots, but it’s fond. She’d know by the way he sounds, even if she couldn’t see the way his eyes crinkle at the corners.

So she bats her lashes, giving her best innocent face. “Oopsie- _daisy_?”

Peter’s eyes narrow a little, but before he can reply to that, there’s a knock at the door, and the blonde from the front desk pokes her head in. “Hey Peter. Chris is here. Should I send him in?”

Peter nods. “Please. Thank you, Erica.”

The blonde gives him a cheeky salute, and then disappears, presumably to go fetch Chris. Which—“Not that I’m complaining, because I’m really not, but why is Chris here?”

Before Peter can answer, the man himself comes into the room. “I assume I’m here to either provide you with some aftercare,” he nods in her direction, “or to get an ass-chewing from Peter, depending on why you’re curled up under his arm.”

Stiles frowns, trying to figure out why he’d get in trouble, and then she remembers the final clause of the liability waiver. “Oh.”

“So, which is it?”

Peter shrugs the shoulder she’s not curled up against. “A little of both, honestly. Not as much of the second one as you were probably expecting, but you’re not completely off the hook, either. I want to know how this misunderstanding happened.”

Chris looks from her, to Peter. “Misunderstanding?”

Stiles hides her face in Peter’s well-developed pectoral and pretends it’s because he’s a great cuddler, and not that she’s blushing her face off. After a long moment where she doesn’t speak, Peter says, “She didn’t realize what we do here, thought we were a standard escort service.”

Stiles peeks at Chris out of the corner of her eye, hidden behind her hair. “Huh.” He tips his head to the side as he digests that. “That would explain a lot.”

Peter hums his agreement. “Including why she dropped.”

“Shit.” Chris crosses the room, sitting behind her on the sofa and carefully laying one of his big hands on her waist. “How’re you feeling, baby?”

“Kinda crappy,” she admits, voice small. “But better than when I woke up.”

The hand at her waist gives a little squeeze. “I’m glad to hear that. I’m sure Peter’s taken good care of you so far, but I’d like to coddle you a little myself. You okay with that?”

Given what she knows now, that’s not even a question. “Yeah. Please?”

“Glad to hear it. You want Peter to stay, or leave us alone for a bit?”

Given that they probably need to talk, and she has some embarrassing questions to ask about their night together? “Would you mind leaving?” she asks, looking up at Peter.

She gets a brief upward quirk of his lips, and one last squeeze around her waist before his arm withdraws. “Not at all. You two need to talk.” He looks up at Chris. “You and I will need to talk after she’s gone home.”

Stiles can’t see how Chris responds to that, but she’s shifted away from Peter’s side and onto Chris’s lap by two sets of capable hands, so clearly some type of exchange happened. She’s not worried about it, though, because she feels warm and safe snugged up against Chris’s chest, and Peter smiles and nods before he leaves the room.

Before she has the chance to worry about how to start the conversation they need to have, Chris lifts the cover on the tray she’s been ignoring, revealing cheese, crackers, some cold-cuts, grapes and a bottle of water. “There anything on here you can’t eat or don’t like, baby?”

Stiles takes a minute to look at the cold-cuts, but it looks like ham, and maybe turkey. “It all seems okay to me?”

“Okay then. I know we need to talk, but first, you need to eat something so you’ll start feeling better. Will you let me feed you?”

Her cheeks colour up, and she ducks her head, but she thinks about what Peter told her, about how Chris said he wanted to coddle her. Between that and the reprieve from talking about her dumbshit mistake, there’s really only one answer. “Okay.”

***

Chris takes his time with Stiles, both because she needs it and because he wants to put off the ass-chewing portion of events as long as possible. But eventually his sweet girl needs to go home and sleep off the last of her drop, and he needs to go face the music, so he collects the now-empty tray and heads towards the back rooms. Thankfully the kitchen is clear, so he spends a few minutes throwing out grape stems and washing the tray before making his way to Peter’s office.

Door’s open, and Peter’s at his desk, so he doesn’t even have to knock. He still lingers in the doorway, though, waiting until Peter acknowledges him before stepping inside.

Chris closes the door and sits down, running a hand over his face. “So.”

Peter gives a noncommittal hum. “I know from speaking to her that her drop wasn’t caused by negligence on your part with regard to aftercare, and that most of this was just a big misunderstanding. But the part I can’t wrap my head around is the fact that she left here thinking we were a standard escort service. How was that even possible, Christopher?”

“Don’t ‘Christopher’ me,” he mutters, tired. “There’s no point playing the blame game, here, Peter. She walked in our doors, and we tend to assume that someone knows what they’re walking into when they do that. We’re not exactly easy to find.”

Peter dips his chin, mouth pinched. “True enough.”

“Honestly, the number of things that had to go wrong for this to even happen are ridiculous.” He starts counting them off on his fingers. “She has to find us online without being referred by someone in the know. She has to get past you without you realizing she’s here by accident. Then, she has to skim through and sign the NDA and waiver without picking up a clue about what kind of business this is. She has to get through our initial negotiation, which,” he lifts his hands, palms outwards, “granted, didn’t use terminology that would tip her off, or go according to the script, but we did talk about what brought her here, what she wanted from me, all that. She didn’t once object or seem confused during our scene, so I didn’t stop things. I checked in with her and asked for clarification the way I would with any submissive I’m scening with for the first time, and got the all-clear.” He pauses and rubs a hand over his face.

“You were worried.”

He glares at Peter, even though it was neutrally-said. “Of course I was! You didn’t see the state she was in, Peter. If you thought she was spooked when she was in the lobby, she was all-but shaking in her boots once we got upstairs. She showed up here desperate and lonely, completely torn up about the fact that she needed to be here at all. And then she takes off like a bat out of hell as soon as her heartrate settled down and completely disappeared!”

Peter winces sympathetically. “You’ve spent the last four days wondering what went wrong.”

It’s not a question, but he nods anyway, slumping in his chair. “Yeah.”

They’re both quiet for a moment before Peter tuts. “I still don’t understand how you two negotiated her scene without having a lightbulb moment, but I suppose we’ll just have to be more diligent in future.”

Chris nods. “I mean, she got past you. She signed the forms. At that point, I expected that she knew what I was and what we do here, so I never laid it out explicitly.”

Peter sighs, one hand rubbing his temples. “Just promise me nothing like this will happen again.”

“Deal.”

“You got her settled?”

Chris dips his chin, pressing his lips together. He knows if that was the state she was in when he got there, she would’ve been worse before curling up with Peter for the better part of an hour.

“Good.” Peter pauses for a moment. “She wash her hands of us, or is she going to come back?”

At that, Chris’s mouth twitches into a lopsided smile. “Baby’s gonna do some research, find and fill out a checklist, and when she comes back, we’ll see if I can’t give her a few reasons to become a regular.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this chapter was a bit plot-heavy, but we needed that out of the way before we can get back to the kinky fun stuff!


	3. gotta choose

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. This is either a couple days early, since it's not Friday, or it's over a month late, depending on your perspective. I know the wait's been long, and I'm sorry about that, but life has been spectacularly shitty. Nothing fucks with your plans quite like a death in the family. 
> 
> Massive thanks go to not only Bunnywest and DiscontentedWinter, but also to SushiOwl and Shey for all the cheerleading, hand-holding, and ass-kicking this chapter required. This fandom has the best people. I love you all to pieces.

Stiles goes on a research binge the likes of which she hasn’t since high school, and has to compensate with a _lot_ of Red Bull at work the next day. She’s not sure what to think of all of it, so she just lets it sit in her brain and settle for a few days before calling Triskele Services and booking in with Chris. She doesn’t exactly feel ready to see him, but she has questions that only he can answer, and she’s not going to know how she really feels about him, or what they did, until she sees him and submits _knowing_ that that’s what she’s doing.

She tells herself that it’s for science—to sate her curiosity, to understand the experience and complement her research—so she’ll stop obsessing about it and go the fuck to sleep the night before their second session. If she lets it be personal at this stage, she’ll get lost in the unanswerable morass of what it _means_.

She puts it out of her mind, and sleeps, and doesn’t think about it while she’s at work. She doesn’t think about it when she’s riding the subway as far as she can, and she doesn’t think about where she’s headed while she walks the ten blocks from the subway stop to her destination.

But not-thinking-about-it ends abruptly when she sees Chris waiting for her in the lobby of Triskele Services. He’s just as unfairly attractive as he was when she first saw him. Only this time, when he offers her his hand to take, she hesitates—she wants the contact, but she knows what it means, now. Knows that if she takes it, she’s giving over, giving in, letting him lead. _Submitting_.

When she looks up from the hand he’s still holding out to her, she sees that he’s giving her a very pointed look. When she swallows, his eyebrows go up, and he moves his hand closer, but doesn’t take hers. And then he waits.

He’s making her choose, she realizes. Ensuring that she submits, but by choice, knowing what she’s doing this time.

It’s so much harder to slip her hand into his than it should be. Chris strokes his thumb across the back of her hand, and Stiles ducks her head. She keeps her eyes on her feet as he leads her upstairs, her heart in her throat and something like shame colouring her cheeks. It shouldn’t be this hard but it _is_ , because she’s never been a follower.

The click of the door closing behind them, shutting them into the same room they were in last time, feels gunshot-loud in the silence. Chris either isn’t picking up on the tension, or is deliberately ignoring it, because he settles himself in the armchair, one ankle resting on the opposite knee, and looks at her expectantly. “So.”

Stiles gingerly sits across from him like the matching armchair’s gonna eat her alive. “So,” she parrots, not sure where to go from here.

It’s silent for an uncomfortably long moment as Chris pins her with a piercing stare. Just as she’s about to start squirming, he murmurs, “You’re struggling with being here. More than last time, even. Why?”

She’s been turning it over in her head since Peter explained, but it’s still hard to make her mouth form the words. “It’s just, this, what you do here, the list you had me look up—none of that is me. I’m not like that. No offense to you professionally, or anything, but I’m just not.”

Chris is unsettlingly unfazed. “Only you can decide if you’re a submissive or not, baby.”

For some reason, it amps up the agitation jittering in her chest. “No, it’s not just—I don’t do that. I’m not a follower, I don’t submit to anyone. I’ve been getting into shit and breaking laws since I hit double digits because my Dad is the Sheriff of the town I grew up in. Authority figures and I don’t get along. I don’t really have a boss at work, I drove all my teachers nuts in school, and I was the one convincing my friends to do stupid shit. _I don’t do this_.”

Chris’s eyebrows have pulled together by the end of her mini-tirade. “Deep breaths baby,” he rumbles, and she takes them, realizing she needs to calm down. She didn’t come here to lose her shit. “Now, first off, I need you to tell me you understand that you’re not lesser for submitting. Following rules and obeying orders isn’t intrinsically bad.”

She remembers the times her dad’s ranted about how not following protocol or breaking the chain of command has resulted in a miscarriage of justice or someone getting hurt. The time he sat her down and went over the rules of firearm safety, because he didn’t want her to accidentally shoot her own foot off if she ever wound up with a gun in her hands. “It’s not,” she says slowly, agreeing.

Chris leans forward, setting both his feet on the floor and bracing his elbows on his knees. “I’d also like to point out that you seemed to very much enjoy what we did the other night.”

It’s not a question, but it sort of is, and there’s no good answer to it. She looks away as she decides to be honest. “I did.”

“I’ll be honest with you, Stiles. I do what I do because I find it personally fulfilling. It satisfies a need for me, but I recognize that’s not what it is for everyone, especially from your end of the exchange. But I’ll eat my boots if you don’t need it, at least for right now.”

Stiles’s mouth drops open in outraged shock and she stares, wide-eyed and sputtering as all 100 reasons he’s oh-so-very _wrong_ try to come out her mouth at once.

Chris has the gall to look amused. “I’m not going to tell you who you are. The person that you are back in California, with your dad and your friends, that’s real, and it’s you. But the person you are here, in New York, is just as real, just as much who you are. But it’s who you are without a support system, without anyone to take care of you.”

It soothes her outrage, but stings her pride. “I don’t need to be taken care of. I’m an adult.” Hell, when she’s back home in California, she’s the one taking care of people. It’s what she does. “I’m also most definitely the Wine Aunt friend.” At his raised eyebrow, she shrugs. “I’m too irresponsible to be the Mom friend.”

He sighs. “So you’re telling me that you didn’t watch movies with your dad, or cuddle your friends, that you never had sleepovers or someone cook for you? None of your girl friends ever did your hair or makeup or nails, never helped you get ready for a date? No one looked after you when you were sick?”

Stiles blinks at him, speechless. Finally, after a long moment and a couple false starts, she croaks, “They did.” And, for a moment, remembering those times makes her heart squeeze painfully.

Chris just nods. “Human beings are social creatures. We need touch, need to be taken care of and show that care to others. And you don’t have that right now.”

Which, okay, point, she nods and concedes that one, but—“That doesn’t explain the whole,” she waves a hand, making a vague gesture, “kink part, though.”

“You can’t just accept that it’s part of the care you’re going without?” She gives him her most deadpan glare, and he chuckles. “Yeah, alright. In my experience, the people who need this—it’s about balance.”

“Okay,” Stiles says slowly, because _this_ she hasn’t heard. This didn’t really come up in her research binge, and she’s not sure whether or not to believe it. She’s reserving judgement until she hears more.

“For me, it’s about being needed, being able to provide, fill the needs of the people I care about. Being a parent and running a company gave me that, but my daughter is grown and taking over that company now, so I’m not needed the way I used to be.”

Stiles is a little shocked. “You have an adult daughter?”

Chris grins, bright and happy. “Yeah. I married young to please my father, and became a dad at 21. My daughter’s a few years older than you.”

Huh. “I don’t really know what to say,” she admits.

Chris just shrugs. “Nothing to say. I only bring it up to illustrate my point. The flip side of my work here at Triskele Services is that my regulars tend to be people who need what I have to give—they enjoy that I’m a nurturer, because they have precious little of that and crave it.”

That sounds uncomfortably familiar. “So, what, it’s just about complementary needs?”

“Essentially.”

“I still don’t get how the submission power-exchange thing factors in.”

Chris gives her a long look, his eyes tracing over her face, down her throat, to her hands, and then back up. “Like I said, it’s about balance. Having to lead, to be in control all the time—running a business or department at work, having a high-stress job, managing your household and paying bills, caring for pets or children if you have them—it takes effort. It takes a lot of time and energy to make decisions and run your life. Having a space to let go of that, where what’s expected of you is clear and the stakes are low, is important.”

And suddenly, it clicks, and Stiles remembers something she read once. “It’s about preventing someone from snapping—in archery, you have to unstring a bow from time to time so that the constant tension doesn’t make it snap, which can cause pretty serious injury if you’re trying to use it when it breaks.”

Chris’s eyes are glittering with amusement, but he nods. “Exactly. And you, my dear, haven’t had many opportunities to do that since you moved out east, from what you’ve told me.”

Her mouth twists into a wry smile. “Not really, no.” She can admit that. However, “But I still really—that, uh, kink list thing. People are really into that?”

Chris’s head tips to the side as he grins at her. “What? You’ve never experimented at all in the bedroom? Never tried anything new, or been curious about what something you haven’t done is like?”

She waves a hand. “Sure—I was curious about things, but, y’know, _normal_ things. Things like oral sex and vibrators, not, like whips and chains!”

Chris sighs. “There’s nothing inherently normal or abnormal about whips and chains, Stiles. It’s just what you’ve been told is ‘weird’—and the actual sorts of instruments and restraints that get used in this establishment are very different than what you’ll have seen on TV and most of the porn on the internet. Different cultures across the ages have done what we do here, in different forms. Three hundred years ago, prostitutes were offering the same things you see in porn today.” He rubs his face tiredly, and then suddenly stands up—and when he does, there’s something different about him.

Stiles doesn’t have time to figure out what it is, though, because he says, “Come here,” and it’s not until she’s already up and out of her chair that she realizes it was an order. And not like the first time she was here, where he murmured and handled her with kid gloves—he sounds like he expects to be obeyed.

Fear of what she’s gotten herself into settles into her stomach when his hands land on her shoulders, and spin her so her back is to him. She doesn’t know what to expect, but his big hands slide down her arms to encircle each wrist in a firm grip, drawing them up towards her chest until he’s holding both of them in one hand. The other, he splays across her belly as he presses in tight against her back.

It’s making her heart stutter and her breaths speed up, and not from fear.

Chris dips his head to murmur in her ear. “See, the thing is, baby, there’s a lotta different kinds of pain, and lots of people enjoy some form or other, even if they don’t think of it that way. But that’s because pain is part of a spectrum of sensation, and everyone has different levels of tolerance for different sensations.”

His voice drops into a gravelly whisper that makes heat start to pool between her thighs. “But if I were to bite my way down your neck, you might enjoy that. Lots of people do. Maybe you’re someone who likes having their nipples played with—bitten and pinched and rolled until they’re all sore and sensitive. Maybe you’d love my set of nipple clamps, which takes that set of sensations to the next level. Maybe you’d love the feel of my bare hand spanking that pretty ass of yours pink and tingly—or maybe my hand wouldn’t be enough, and you’d beg and squirm under a paddle instead.”

Stiles squirms, or tries to, but Chris has her firmly, safely pinned against him, and chuckles. “Do you like this, baby? You like pushing a little bit, and seeing exactly how tight I’ve got you, knowing you can’t get away if I don’t want you to?”

She does, and she hates that she does, so she side-steps the question. “Even if I safeworded?”

Chris’s grip shifts, releasing her wrists so that his arm crosses her torso to hold her opposite shoulder, the hand on her stomach sliding so his opposite arm is around her waist, turning their whatever-it-was into a kind of hug-from-behind. “Of course not then,” he says simply, like it doesn’t completely contradict everything he was just saying.

“But—if I can get out at any time, then—that doesn’t make sense.”

He lets her go entirely, and the cold air rushes in to replace the heat of his body, making her shiver even though she’s still wearing her coat. She turns to face him a little reluctantly. His expression is serious, but calm. “Because I don’t enjoy assaulting people.”

“ _What!?_ ”

He shrugs. “Think about it. If you don’t want to be held down, and I’m pinning you to the bed, that’s assault. And that’s not what I’m into, not what this is about. It can only be an exchange of power if it’s consensual.”

And that’s—she’s never thought of it that way. If she thinks of it that way, maybe she can do this. “Okay, so . . . now what?”

Chris retakes his seat, sprawling like a king on his paisley-upholstered throne. “Now, we negotiate our scene, baby. You and I talk about what we’re going to do, you tell me what you want, and especially what you don’t, and then, once we’ve reached an agreement, you’re going to take off your clothes and let me take care of you.”

Heat crawls up her face as she swallows. “I can do that.”

***

Chris watches her blush with dark satisfaction. He wasn’t lying when he told her that he’s a nurturer, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t get a certain kind of thrill out of watching her fidget as she struggles to voice what she wants. Of course, after the debacle that was her first session, it’s not just about stroking his ego—he’s decided that, despite everything he wants to give her and do to her touch-starved little body, he’s going to make her ask for it, first. Assumptions got them into this mess, communication will get them out.

But if he happens to enjoy this aspect of her submission, the visual proof that she _is_ submitting even as she denies that she is, well. He’s only a man.

“So, what are you hoping for from our session today?”

She shifts, shoulders rising as she ducks her head. “I, um. I don’t really know? Can’t you decide?”

“No, I can’t,” he tells her firmly, and her head snaps up in shock. “I can’t give you what you want if you can’t tell me you want it. But if you don’t know what that is yet, because you’re new, then start with what you don’t want. A lot of people find that easier.”

She frowns. “I mean, you and Peter both—you said you were gonna take care of me, so nothing too extreme, I guess?”

Chris is reminded, yet again, of how little experience she has. “Your version of extreme, or mine, baby? Because tying you spread-eagle to that bed over there, working a plug into your ass and then fucking your sweet little cunt til you squirt or pass out would be a fairly tame evening for me.” He gives her a pointed look, and her eyes widen as her cheeks turn scarlet.

“I, um,” she stammers. “I don’t think I’m quite ready for that?”

“For which part?” he presses. “You’re not ready to be tied to the bed? For anal play? For me to give you my cock?”

She covers her face with both hands and mutters something unintelligible. When she lifts her head, she’s glaring a little. “Okay, I get your point. You can stop that, now.”

“I’m sorry to say that I can’t,” he says cheerfully. He’s not sorry in the slightest. Her embarrassed glaring is delightful. “We really do need to go over this in detail so that I’m not doing anything that you don’t want done to you, and given that our respective normals are so different, vague, delicate statements are asking for trouble.”

She takes a deep breath, and lets it out slowly. When she speaks, she looks at the floor near his feet. “No to anything in my ass. No tying me down or using restraints. If—if you were to hold me, pin me with your body, that’d probably be okay. No pain, and no marks that I can’t hide under my work clothes.”

It’s about what he expected. “What about marks you can hide?”

Her eyes dart to his face, and then away again as her cheeks tint pink. “Maybe. Depends on what you had in mind.”

“Bruises, but nothing that would break the skin. Nothing that involves sharp or surface pain.”

She shoots a narrow-eyed look at him. “Does that mean deep pain?” she asks, and it borders on suspicious. Now she’s getting it.

“It could,” he tells her with a nod. “It depends on what your tolerance for it is, but it’s comparable to massage.” Her expression clears, which is good. He doesn’t want to start a scene with her when she’s warier of him than a feral cat. “Is there anything else that you _would_ like? Any questions?”

It’s a nudge, and he hopes she takes it. He’d love to make her come crying his name, to have her soft and loose-limbed in his arms, soaking up touch in her afterglow. But she has to ask for it. He's not going to read the want written all over her and offer, because she needs to own up to what she actually wants, rather than clinging to what she thinks she _should_ want. 

"What, exactly, did you have in mind that's apparently _like_ massage, but will leave bruises?" 

It's not what he'd hoped she'd say, but it's excellent progress nonetheless. Chris will take it. "Cupping. Have you heard of it?" 

Her brow furrows. "Maybe? What is it?"

Hopefully, a way for her to relax. "An ancient therapeutic practise that uses glass or ceramic cups—modern practitioners sometimes use plastic or silicone—and either fire or a pump to create a vacuum and suction the cups to the skin." 

"Sounds cool." Her head tips to the side, and Chris _does not_ eye the expanse of throat that shows off, because he knows better than to court temptation.

But if his voice is husky when he asks, "Anything else you want or need from me today?" then that's no one's business but his own. 

Those pretty chocolate eyes skitter away from his face, and she shakes her head. 

Alright, then. Guess they're doing this the hard way. "Then strip."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bring a lil sunshine into my shitshow and leave some love on this if you enjoyed it?


	4. hot like mexico

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M BACK, BABES! It feels like it's been forever since I posted, but it's been because I'm cooking up a bunch of stuff behind the scenes, and also because bodies are rude. Mine in particular. 
> 
> Big thanks for cheerleading go to Bunnywest and MrsRidcully, with a nod to Shey, who pretty much vibrated with joy every time I mentioned working on this. 
> 
> Happy Friday!

_“Then strip.”_

Stiles feels a tingle go down her spine, hearing that. When Chris stares at her expectantly, she swallows and nods. She unlaces her boots and steps out of them before standing in her socked feet, waiting. He doesn’t move or speak, watching her with an unwavering gaze that makes her want to hide instead of peel out of her layers. She does anyway, because she agreed to give this a chance.

When she’s completely bare, she crosses her arms over her chest.

Chris stares at her for another long moment before he gets up. The first thing he does is pull her arms away from her torso—but rather than scold her for covering herself, or telling her what to do, he presses his fingers along her left arm, starting at the shoulder and working his way down. “You have any injuries or medical conditions I should know about? Circulation issues, chronic pain, anything like that?”

She doesn’t understand for a moment. “I mean, my ADHD meds mess with my circulation, if that counts?”

He hums, and starts going over her right arm. “It does, thank you. I’m guessing your layers are about staying warm then, not hiding?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll make sure there’s a space heater in here for our next session, then. For today, a blanket over your legs and a heating pad work?”

Something warm and delicate blossoms behind her breastbone at the question. “I’d like that.”

“Good. Do you have any known triggers that I need to avoid?”

It strikes her as a bit of an odd question, until she realizes that that’s a very real occupational hazard for someone in his line of work. She swallows hard, and considers the question. She’d rather not answer, but the truth is—“No pretending to be strangers, or that you don’t know me. And, um, it’s not a trigger, but I don’t want to be called names, or made to feel bad, you know?” He nods, and she continues. “I also don’t want to do this with alcohol involved.” Really, she doesn’t want him drunk, but this seems like a politer way to ask.

Chris’s expression goes serious. “Baby, I’m never going to do this with you—or anyone else—when I’m not 100% sober. And I expect you to do the same. This, what we do here, it plays with your brain chemistry—as soon as you start adding in substances that mess with that, the chances of something going wrong go up.”

Huh. She hadn’t thought of that. “That makes sense, but why isn’t that in the waiver?”

He hums tilting his head in a so-so motion. “It is, but only pertaining to any sexual activity, for obvious reasons. It’s unofficial policy here at Triskele Services, with the understanding that some people have different preferences, and we can’t actually enforce sobriety. I’m a little stricter about it than most, though—if I find out you showed up to a session and you weren’t sober, you get one chance to explain yourself before I decide whether or not to blacklist you.”

“Seriously?”

He locks gazes with her. “Absolutely. Sober, or not at all, if you’re scening with me.”

“Okay.” It comforts her more than she thinks it should.

The moment breaks when he smiles. “Of course that doesn’t apply to your medications. Those, you take as you need to, you just let me know if there are any other side effects I need to be careful of.”

“I don’t think so?” If there are, she can’t think of them right now, not with his hands tracing over her shoulders and down her bare back.

“Okay. If that changes, or you remember something else, let me know.” He moves behind her, hands smoothing up her sides, across her ribs—learning her by feel, not sight. She’s more relieved than she wants to admit that she doesn’t have to look him in the eye while he does.

“You already told me you don’t want any marks your work clothes can’t hide, but where are the boundaries for that, exactly?”

Hearing his deep, gravelly voice right next to her ear makes her shiver, and not with cold. “Um, I’m usually in casual wear—blouses, sometimes nice tank tops under blazers, mostly dark jeans.”

One of his hands splays wide across her belly as the other follows the curve of her hip, and Stiles has to hold in a moan as it sends tingles rippling across her skin. “Is there anywhere that’s especially tender or sensitive that I should avoid?”

It takes a moment for her to understand the question—why would Chris want to avoid her sensitive spots? And then she realizes he’s asking because cupping. “Oh, um. I don’t think so? Where were you planning on doing it?”

His hands drift from her hips to ghost over her butt, and then down the backs of her thighs. Stiles stumbles and has to grip the arm of the nearest armchair, because she wants him badly enough to get literally weak-kneed over it. Which is stupid, but the guy _did_ fingerfuck her into one of the best orgasms of her life, so maybe she can be forgiven for getting a little moist when he’s got his hands all over her.

They’re talented hands.

“I was planning on cupping your back, but now I’m wondering if you’d benefit from having your thighs done, too,” Chris replies, a little absently. He’s prodding at her thighs, and the only thing stopping her from begging to be touched is the fact that the poking actually kinda hurts—she had no idea her hamstrings were that tight.

“Okay.”

“Yeah?” He stands, and comes around to face her, which is somehow still more embarrassing than having him crouch behind her and feel her up. “You don’t have to agree, and you can change your mind if we start and you don’t like the sensation.”

For some reason, being given the out makes her bristle. “I came here willing to give this a shot. If I don’t like it, or it goes badly or whatever, then okay, at least I tried. But you obviously put some thought into choosing this for”—she can’t bring herself to say “me”, even if it’s accurate—“our session, and I’m willing to trust that you know what you’re doing, at least until you’ve proven otherwise. So let’s get this show on the road.”

Chris chuckles, and slides one hand round her neck. She goes still as his thumb strokes down the front of her throat. “Easy, baby. I’m not backing out on you, just being thorough this time. I took shortcuts when you first walked in here, because I assumed you knew enough for me to do that, and that cost you. For today, and the next few scenes if you decide to continue booking in with me, I’m going to do things by the book. It’s not to patronize you, it’s to ensure your wellbeing. So no more attitude, alright?”

Stiles nods, her cheeks heating.

“I’m not angry, baby.” And, when she looks up, Chris looks as calm as he sounds. “You’re allowed to tell me how you feel, if you do or don’t like something, but respectfully. Disrespect doesn’t have a place here, not with how much vulnerability happens in this room.”

Stiles nods again, and takes a deep breath. She’s trying not to shake as she really thinks through what he’s saying. It’d be too easy to feel chastised and nothing else, but really, he’s not scolding her—he said _disrespect doesn’t have a place here_ , including himself in that. “Can I have a hug?” she rasps.

“Of course.” And then he opens his arms like it’s the easiest thing in the world, and she presses up against the soft cotton of his button up until she feels less like she’s about to shake apart.

She’s not sure how long she stands there with her face pressed to his chest as he holds her against him, but eventually he asks, “Ready?”

As ready as she’s going to be. “Yeah.”

She doesn’t expect him to bend his knees, cup the backs of her thighs, and scoop her up in a front-facing piggyback, so she shrieks, arms wrapping around his shoulders. “Oh my God!”

He grins at her, and it’s somehow simultaneously sunny and shit-eating. “Problem?” he asks innocently.

“A little warning next time?” she mutters as she’s carefully tossed on the bed. She’s scared to look at the front of his jeans because there’s a chance she left them covered in girl-slick, and just. She’s going to be good this time, isn’t going to push her neediness onto Chris when she doesn’t even know if it’s something he wants. She’s still a little ashamed of assuming he was an escort the first time.

She realizes what she said when her train of thought is broken by a delighted laugh. “Next time? You like being manhandled, baby? Like it when I pick you up and put you where I want you?”

Stiles covers her face with her hands, but still gives a muffled, “Yes,” because, well. He asked, and it would be stupid to lie to him.

The bed dips as he crawls over her, nuzzling the side of her face like a big, affectionate cat. “No need to be like that, baby,” he murmurs. “I _want_ to know what you like. Makes it better for both of us.”

And, well. Her embarrassment and indignation drain away at that, so she wraps an arm around his shoulders and tucks her face against his neck. “Okay.”

He kisses her hair, and then taps the forearm she’s got slung around his neck so she’ll let him go. He flips her over, onto her stomach, and Stiles bites her lip so hard she tastes blood trying to hold in the whimper she wants to give.

“You stay right here while I get what we need,” Chris murmurs, and Stiles nods before she really grasps that he wasn’t asking.

She spends the time he digs out the heating pad, towel, oil, and cupping set trying to figure out if she’s annoyed by that. She doesn’t think she is, which feels like it should be a problem.

She doesn’t get to poke at that line of thought any further, though, because Chris settles her on top of the heating pad and towel, covering her from the knees down with a blanket before smoothing oil over her skin with lingering passes of those broad, callused hands. “And here we go,” he mutters.

***

Stiles basks in the afterglow for as long as she can before needing to leave to get home, peeling herself off Chris reluctantly. “Thanks for,” she points back and forth between them, “this.”

He smiles and runs a hand down her back. “Anytime, baby. You thinking about leaving?”

She nods and rolls off the bed, a little self-conscious about her nakedness now. “Yeah. I have work tomorrow, so I need to get home and get some sleep.” She reaches the armchair where her clothes are piled, and slips back into her bra first.

“I get it. What time’s your lunch tomorrow?”

Stiles turns her head, looking over her shoulder from where she’s stepping back into her panties. She doesn’t understand the question, but answers anyway. “12:30, why?”

Chris ignores her question. “How long does it go for? You have enough time to leave the building?”

At that, Stiles thinks she sees where he’s going with this. “I’m a lucky employee and get a full hour. I repeat, why?”

It gets her a pointed look that’s not quite a glare, but is very definitely not amused. “Because aftercare is important, so you’re gonna text me when you get home, let me know you made it safely, and then, tomorrow morning, you’re gonna tell me where I’m meeting you for lunch. There’s some things we need to talk about, aside from checking in.”

Stiles’s cheeks grow hot as she nods. “Yeah, okay. I can do that.”

“Good girl,” Chris husks, and she can’t contain her shiver. She plays it off as simple coldness, and squirms back into her jeans, ignoring the needy throbbing between her legs as best she can. She only hopes she doesn’t soak through them completely on the trip home.

“How’re you planning to get back?”

She looks over at him, pausing in pulling her sweater over her head. “Subway. Same way I got here.” It’s halfway between a statement and a question, because she’s not sure what he’s getting at.

Chris hums, his eyebrows pulling together. “Would you be opposed to letting me drive you home? I don’t feel quite right about letting you navigate public transit this late after a session.”

Part of her wants to say ‘yes’, but—“I mean, I should be fine, though? I got here just fine, and it’s not the first time I’ve had to take a bus or the subway at night.”

Chris dips his chin, but sits up from his relaxed sprawl on the bed. “And I wouldn’t argue otherwise, but you were just in an . . . altered state, let’s call it. And I put you there. From my perspective, it’d be like inviting you out for drinks and then leaving you to find your own way home—the responsible thing to do is make sure you get home safe.”

It’s still a weird concept for her, but Stiles thinks she can kind of understand. She’s driven drunk friends home enough times that she can kind of get where he’s coming from, even though the only thing wrong with her right now is how desperately horny she is. “Okay.”

A relieved smile creases his face, making his eyes crinkle at the corners. “Thank you, baby.”

Stiles thinks it’s weird that he’s thanking her when she’s the one getting driven home, but she doesn’t argue. The faster she gets home, the faster she can tuck her favourite toy between her legs and come to the memory of his deep voice and big hands skating over her skin as she was cupped until she was basically a puddle. It was so hard not to beg him to—

“Ready to go?”

Her cheeks flush guiltily. “Yeah.”

***

Stiles whimpers, fingers pressing harder against the side of her clit as her other hand pushes her vibrator in deep, angled just right to nail her g-spot as she comes for the third time, imagining what Chris would think if he could see her now, if he would call her “baby” again, or tell her she was good—if he would let her stop after three, or if he would grip the base of her vibrator and keep going. Or maybe instead of the vibe he’d fill her with something else—his fingers again, or maybe he’d make good on that threat (promise?) to tie her down and fuck her ‘til she screams, or passes out. She’s pretty sure he could make her do it, too. If she let him. If she got desperate and asked.

But she knows, even as she dumps the toy on the floor to be dealt with later, that she won’t. She assumed things about Chris before, and it’s not fair to pressure him to do things he doesn’t want to just because she’s needy. She’s already feeling better, having seen him three times—twice for “sessions”—and she knows she’ll _keep_ feeling better if she can swallow her pride to book in with him again. Apparently, she needs some looking after, needs touch and massage and mother-henning.

But sex is—it’s different. It’s a thing she wants, not a thing she _needs_ , and it was one thing, to take it, accept it from Chris, when she thought it was what she was paying him for, when she knew exactly what he was getting out of it, but it’s something else entirely to want it from him when she’s seeing him professionally and it’s not his job to provide it. His job probably makes it something people want from him a lot, and Stiles is glad that _Triskele Services’_ waiver protects him, makes it clear that it’s a thing both parties have to agree to.

And Stiles might crave sex because she wants intimacy like she wants air, but it’s not right to push that on him. Not when she already fucked things up between them so badly at their first meeting. So she’ll just keep being good and exercising self-control like the goddamned grownup she’s trying to be.

***

Chris is at the little café right at 12:30, even though he knows Stiles won’t get there for another few minutes at least. Once there, he has to resist the urge to order for her, settling in instead with his coffee and number, waiting for his soup-and-sandwich to arrive. As he does, he reflects on last night.

Stiles is—he really hopes she’ll continue to see him. But if she’s not up for that, he’ll see if he can convince her to set up a few appointments with Peter, for all that Peter tends not to take clients, more preoccupied with the mechanics of keeping _Triskele Services_ up and running. He doesn’t think it would take much. He’s never seen a submissive as lost as her, as desperately in need of a firm hand to lift her up and help her find peace. He knows Peter saw it, and he knows that there’s no misunderstandings or screw-ups between her and Peter.

It might kill him to let her go, but at least he knows she’d be in the best possible hands—aside from his own—with Peter.

Chris deeply and sincerely hopes it won’t come to that.

Stiles arrives, and he waves to catch her attention. She nods, and goes to the counter to order. When she sits down, she’s visibly nervous, but still miles more settled than she’d appeared when she walked through their doors last night. “Hey, Chris.”

“Hey, baby.” He probably shouldn’t be calling her that in public, but it’s hard to think of her as anything else. Even here, he wants to reach out and touch her.

Luckily, she ducks her head, cheeks pinking at the pet name rather than chewing him out for using it outside a scene, let alone in public. “Thanks for driving me home last night.”

If he were a cat, he’d be purring. This tiny slip of a girl has no idea the way she plays into his instincts—and she won’t, not until they’ve got a few things sorted out. “Anytime. How’re you doing today?”

She shrugs a little. “I don’t feel sick, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Chris hums. “I mean, I’m glad to hear that, I’d hate to hear that you dropped, but that’s not quite what I was asking.” She looks up from her coffee cup, eyebrows pulling together in confusion. Chris leans forward, arms braced on the table, and quietly asks, “Are you sore? Anything you didn’t like about last night? Anything you need right now, to be okay? Something you think might make it better if we did it again?”

Her cheeks bypass pink and flush bright red, creeping all the way up to her ears and down her chest as she drops her gaze back to her coffee cup. She’s saved from answering for a moment by their food arriving, but once the waiter retreats, Chris pushes, because this is important. A debrief is an important part of what he does with clients.

“Stiles?” He waits until she meets his eyes. “Are you sore today?”

She shakes her head.

“Good. Is there anything you need right now?”

She pauses, and Chris knows there’s something, so he waits. Eventually she murmurs, “Just—a hug? When I leave?”

Chris doesn’t bother waiting that long, reaching across the table to rest his hand on her forearm. “It’s normal to want contact the day after, baby,” he murmurs. “Altered states, remember?”

The naked relief on her face is simultaneously hard to see, and soothing. “I think I’m starting to get that, yeah.”

He rubs circles over her wrist with his thumb. “Now. Did anything happen last night that you didn’t like, or aren’t sure about?”

She takes a bite of her wrap while she considers, which is something of a relief. He’s more likely to get an honest answer this way. “I’m still not sure how I feel, exactly, about all of it, but—I can’t exactly lie and say that I didn’t enjoy it, or that it didn’t feel good, or that I don’t feel better today than I have all week, because I do.”

Chris narrows in on the bit that needs addressing. “Still feeling conflicted about the whole thing?”

Stiles shrugs one shoulder, her head tilting to the side. “Little bit, yeah.”

“Conflicted enough that you don’t want to do it again?”

Her tongue darts across her bottom lip. “No,” she whispers, and something in Chris’s chest eases.

“Okay. You want to set up a regular timeslot with me while we’re here?” He doesn’t offer her the option to book as-needed, because he’d bet his last paycheque that she’d wait until she was desperate and falling apart before she’d admit to needing it.

She looks young as her big doe eyes scan his face before nodding.

**Author's Note:**

> Come scream with me about Stargent on [Tumblr](https://queerfictionwriter.tumblr.com/).
> 
> Fic and chapter titles taken from Lady Gaga's Alejandro.


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